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In Reply to: "If all you did was tithe to the group" posted by Thinker on October 16, 2002 at 23:31:51:
Coming to terms with the mess that we've unwittingly made of our lives and of our children's is indeed an extremely painful experience. One we all have to go through in order to rebuild a new self-identity. And yes, I do have regrets and guilt. Lots of them. Allowing myself to feel all these and acknowledging them is the first step towards recovery.
When I left, I was looking for someone to blame. I didn't blame God or other people. I blamed myself. I flogged myself nonstop for my naivete, nay my stupidity, for joining and staying. I cursed Berg and his ilk for all the crap I now have to unlearn. I raged at the stds I got laying down my body for the brethren. Not to mention my agony that my child is fatherless. The minute I got out I hid my shame behind my busyness, playing catch up with my peers. For years I was denying myself the grief over the tremendous loss of self and time. I didn't stop to acknowledge the loss.
Because I was so anxious to get on with living, I drowned myself in my work not realizing that in ignoring my losses I continued incurring more losses--- by continuing the cultic behavior, old family hangovers. I was constantly moving, uprooting my son from one school to another; I put my work first, leaving my young child in the care of his nanny; I plunged into illicit relationships with married men with no regard for the wreck I was doing to their marriage and their children; I made no long-term plans believing that Jesus was coming back any time. If not for my mother insisting on insurance, I wouldn't be insured to this day.
It was only when I started recognizing that I was still behaving as if I've never left, was what woke me up with a jolt! Recognizing old familiar cultic thought patterns and behavior breaks the cult's power over us. It all happens in the subconscious. And it doesn't happen overnight. I find I have to even change the way I pray as it has long become autopilot for me.
Self-worth, self-esteem, self-identity, everything that define who we are, they were all taken from us. We were all put in a mold "fit for the master's use". Whether people agree with me or not, I believe we were brainwashed. It was mind control at its finest. My accountability though is between me and my God. That is my truth, and it works for me. Each of us has to discover his own truth to come to terms with his own self.
